At the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, despite many difficulties and falling manpower, coalmining was the most important industry in Great Britain. It employed around a million persons in well over 3,000 pits ranging from small hillside drift mines with a few hands to substantial collieries with workforces and pit communities the size of villages and small towns. A few months into the conflict, Lloyd George in a patriotic speech to a coal conference...
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